Increasing Energy-harvesting ability of piezoelectric unimorph cantilevers using Spring Supports

Abstract

We fabricated a spring-supported piezoelectric unimorph cantilever (SPUC) with enhanced energy-harvesting characteristics by using a 0.69Pb(Zr0.47Ti0.53)O-3-0.31Pb(Ni0.6Zn0.4)(1/3)Nb-2/3)O-3 + CuO (0.5 mol%) thick film sintered at 950 A degrees C; a spring having a spring constant of 14,320 N/m was used as the cantilever support. The SPUC could generate an output power as high as 29 mW with a spring constant of 14,320 N/m across a resistance of 150 k Omega; this corresponded to a power density of 34 mW/cm(3). We, therefore, that the thus-fabricated SPUCs when supported by a spring can harvest increased levels of energy.